


The Old Ways

by tainara_black



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Study, Dark Magic, Desire, F/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Voldemort has a feverish crush on her, he holds on to restraint like a lifeline, lets say I find it beautiful Walburga is a year older than Voldie and he looks up to her, married Walburga, war machinations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:42:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26758201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tainara_black/pseuds/tainara_black
Summary: The magic flows from her body like small seismic waves of power. It makes his skin crawl. It makes him ache in tender little places he hasn’t felt in years. Yearning for more of her. For a small touch that would burn him beyond repair.Walburga is made of natural disasters. The glint in her eyes is almost manic. She’s like a full-body fever, it comes with tremors and delirium of unnatural kinds.
Relationships: Walburga Black/Tom Riddle, Walburga Black/Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	The Old Ways

**Author's Note:**

> I've always been very passionate about the Black Family. Lately, studying a bit more of their genealogical tree, I put the dates together and realised that Walburga is some years older than her husband (4 if I'm not wrong) and 1 or 2 years older than Voldemort. Most of the fics always place male characters studying with Voldie, so I wanted to change things a bit. I thought is would be nice to explore their close age in their adulthood in the midst of war machinations and magical land bargain. With a tad bit of sexual tension. lol  
> Bare with me. It's good, I promise.

* * *

_ The Most Ancient and Noble House of Black _

_ London, 1970 _

* * *

He climbs the last step of the noisy, rusty, winding stair, his eyes mapping the place in silent wonder. The rooftop is sombre. Rough grey cement floor and dead flower beds in a far corner, big dark clay pots with dead branches and dry bushes scattered around; the only living thing is an imposing carnivorous plant, it’s toothed lips opening and closing sharply around bugs and other insects.

She is right there, in the centre of the chaotic rooftop garden and he thinks the house is in shambles, and so is she. The moon is reflecting its cold brightness over her as if it were a stage light. He takes a second to contemplate her stance. He has never seen her like this before. It is such an incongruous sight it almost feels like he’s intruding. Is not a feeling he’s used to.

She’s perched in a high frail copper chair, her ankles crossed lightly, with pale bare feet against the dirty coarse floor, one white arm falling languidly from the armrest, her elegant fingers holding a thin long smoking pipe. Rings of smoke rising into the night sky. The back of her skull resting on the back of the chair, he can’t see her face from this angle, but he’s stunned by the imagery. 

She looks almost mythical; with her long black mane messy and loose, barely touching the ground. He can’t remember when was the last time he’s seen her hair down, but he’s pretty sure it wasn’t that long, nor were there silver strikes colouring it in a mix of salt and pepper. 

“How long do you plan to stare?” her voice is as rusty as the whole house and he scoffs.

“When your husband told me you were upstairs, I did not envision this,” his voice is playful, he knows she’s temperamental and he doesn’t have time to waste.

“It is my favourite spot...” she says languidly, almost apathetic. He can see why, the view is quite catching, the city surrounding them is so alive, but the magic here is strong and there’s no sound coming from muggle London, just pure quietness. 

It's almost eerie.

She brings the pipe to her lips, taking a long drag and letting her arm fall back again. The smoke rings spiralling into the moon and stars.

“I heard about your plans,” she keeps talking and he steps closer. To be honest, he’s curious to see her face again. It is something he can’t quite shake off, the disgusting feeling of being enchanted, it still sneaks into his body and makes him feel like a little boy in Hogwarts.

“What about it?” 

“Oh, you know,” gesticulating her hands in a vague motion. “All sort of things... About you recruiting pure-bloods from different social circles across Europe, training some of them, having very secretive dinner parties with the most financially affluent, puppeteering some politicians, looking for heavily magical lands...”

He waits a heartbeat for more, but she’s apparently done. 

So he finally chuckles.

She finally looks over her shoulder with a smirk on her thin lips. 

“You will never change, will you, Riddle?” she asks, narrowing her heavy lidded eyes.

“I don’t go by that name anymore,” he mutters and approaches her.

He can see the lights and shadows over her face. Her long neck, high cheekbones, strong nose, heavy eyelids. The years were kind to her, she looks as tempting as always. He always knew the reason she was hypnotic wasn’t her looks but mostly her personality and magic - always so powerful; the mystery about her was never one of beauty, but one of contained ferocity.

“Oh, please,” she says, rolling her eyes just like when she was a teenager, making his own insides turn in a weird fold of time-lapse.  _ How many years ago? _ “I’m not calling you anything else. You know very well how I’ve always favoured  _ riddles _ ...” 

She brings the pipe to her lips again, her piercing grey eyes observing him and, relentless as it is to hear his old name, in her lips it sounds tolerable. 

“Well,” she goes on, straightening on her seat, and looking back to the city lights. Her stance goes back to strictly pure-blood proper and he realises she had indulged him, allowing him a glimpse of her previous disjointed pose. “Let’s cut it short, I guess you are not here for a bit of social gathering.”

He finally stands by her side, his hand falling to the back of her chair, the tip of his fingers touching her thick long hair.

“Had the misfortune of seeing your older son downstairs. Quite the terror.”

She laughs; her laugh is still a bit maniac, he missed that sound.

“Wait a few years and you will see. I can’t remember last time I saw magic so raw as his,” she sounds proud. “As if it emanates from his bare fingertips. The house elves are going insane, if he wants something he gets it, if he wishes hard enough his magic provides... The little devil will cause raucousness in Hogwarts next fall...” 

She goes to the pipe again, lost in fond thoughts, and he waits. 

“Now,” her voice is back to business. “You know I don’t enjoy small talk. What do you want from me?” she’s sharp. She’s ever been. “Why do I owe this visit?”

“Walburga...” he admonishes. 

He’s obviously here for busyness, but it’s not like he is completely uninterested in her domestic life. He is rather curious. Reality doesn’t suit what he ever envisioned for her, it’s a completely new picture of Walburga Black. 

It’s disgusting. A pitiful waste of such powerful magic and strong abilities. 

“Oh hush,” she’s on her element here, in her own queendom. She has never feared him, and that was the most tempting part of her. She could be almost his equal, if only she dared. “I hear you need a safe enough piece of land for some rituals, if Orion delivered me the right information.”

“It is not pressing-”

“But you need it, don’t you?” she presses. He nods. He doesn’t dare to pretend otherwise. She nods. “What kind of rituals, Riddle?”

“That’s classified information,” he retorts with a sly little smile that seems to work like magic on most of the witches.

Not on her.

“Obviously dark, as it’s always been your preference. I’m guessing blood magic... Isn’t it?”

“ _ Walburga _ ,” he can’t say, but at this point she knows she’s right. He doesn’t like the idea of her knowing too much. He used to care for her, a long time ago. 

“You can borrow the state in Trasmoz, blood magic will work wonderfully there. The magic in the land is thick as blood, so rooted and settled it will just revitalize the spirits and it’s old dark magic,” she sighs nostalgic. 

“The cursed Spanish town?” he asks, curiosity peaking. He always wondered about that specific land.

“Cursed? Well, the Pope excommunicated the town so many centuries ago... The magic there used to be so strong it scared the Christians away. Now it is much more subtle, unfortunately. It is where the House of Black Sabatt celebrations were held for centuries...” she explains.

“What do you want in return?” he asks briefly.

“I’ll think about something...” she smiles darkly.

He watches as she smokes, her head falling back, the tips of her hair brushing the dirty floor, the dips of her collarbones shadowed by the moonlight. 

“I also heard you need someone from the Ministry, someone to spy with their little eye...” her gaze on him makes his insides squirm as an old lingering fever. 

There is such a mischievous desire in her darkened orbs. Delightful malice. 

But she’s right. She’s always right. He needs someone trustworthy soon. 

“I have someone, but she’s young...”

At that point, Walburga finally stands up.

She’s tall and lean; her posture used to be more elegant, but now she looks much firmer and grounded than before. She also looks very womanly in a rooted way that he cannot pinpoint. He would guess it started after creating life from within her womb, but he could be wrong. It could be firm due to domesticality, to motherhood, but he would bet it was something rawer, like the insides of her body changing with age and experience, expanding, bearing children, then expelling them and nurturing the bloody demons with milk and blood.

She is 44 now, dark circles around her eyes, some grey hairs sparkling between the black waves of her mane. She looks more like herself now than she has ever looked when she was 13, 18, 27 or 36.

“Who is this woman?” he asks.

“She must be protected at all cost,” she warns. “Pureblood legillimens, occlumens, very good with runes, dueling, tailored to the old ways; knowledgeable on the dark arts and a very mean Cruciatus. She’s fast, on her wand and on her feet.” She smiles slowly, it doesn’t look like a smile at all. Looks like she’s in pain. “She was named to bring a war upon us...”

“What about her weaknesses?” he assesses. 

He feels the tension between their bodies. Like small tendrils of magic reaching out to one another. Her presence is all consuming as always. Like the strong clashes of waves against a rocky mountain set. 

“Hunger for power...” she lists, her eyes trained on his face as if she’s also analysing his changes over the years at the same time she studies his reactions. “Bouts of rage...” Her rusty voice is deep now, almost hoarse and makes him think of memories he hasn’t revisited for ages. It makes him think that evaluating him is making her horny. “She is a tad bit maniac and too good looking for her own sake...”

“Feasible.” he mutters, rolling his eyes at her, she’s practically describing herself. 

“She looks just like me, Tom, can you manage that?” she asks in such a mock of kindness he feels disgusted.

She’s messing with him and he hates how it makes him feel like they're tumbling into the past in a rapid succession of bitter memories. Her bare presence turns him on. Her dark aura, the dangerous pulses of her magic.

They stare at each other. 

All her attention on him, the magic flowing from her body like small seismic waves of power. It makes his skin crawl. It makes him ache in tender little places he hasn’t felt in years. Yearning for more of her. For a small touch that would burn him beyond repair.

Walburga is made of natural disasters. The glint in her eyes is almost manic at this point. She’s like a full-body fever, it comes with tremors and delirium of unnatural kinds. 

“You know very well I can manage that,” he takes a step closer and finally touches her. His thumb against the curve of her neck, in the spot where it meets the shoulder. Her skin is hot like lava and he takes in a deep breath.

Her face is unchanged by his touch, but her body shudders and he presses on his finger against a mole at her collarbone. He would like to lick it or burn it. 

He always desired to possess her. 

What goes unsaid in this exchange is the fact that he can feel both her blood and magic thrumming under her skin, and the way he feels a thrill that only comes with a mix of astounding power and dark magic. 

But that’s her, isn’t it. This avalanche of thick magic and ragged breaths. 

He misses testing her boundaries, tasting her mix of sweet pain and bitter pleasure.

He runs his thumb along the bones of her larynx, feeling her swallow hard under his touch. He looks inside her eyes and sees a miscellaneous of want, loss, desire and rage. 

“She is my niece,” she provides, evoking an emotional barrier between them, he can see the machining of her eyes turn, hiding unwanted memories from him. “Bellatrix Black. Just finished her Unspeakable training, high rank witch she is,” and again, she sounds proud. 

Walburga has always been a proud woman, when it comes to her family it’s so intense it is borderline incestuous to watch. 

“Cygnus kid?” he asks.

“She’s nineteen now,” she says and he runs his fingers against the side of her neck and under her jaw, he’s probably being too delicate in his touch as it creates a veil of sadness shadowing her eyes.

Something changes and he knows he was too tender to a woman that wants no gentle handling. Gentleness is weakness. Walburga Black does not speak tongues of weakness, but she plays the vulnerable part against her will so often... it’s like a second skin now.

The perfect pure-blood wife that she is. Though her core scorches like a vice. Sizes the enemy in, eats them whole. Carnivorous plant that she is.

She smiles at him sickly sweet. He hates to see her playing this part for him, the vulnerable facade makes him rage. His fingers press down on her skin and bones.

He wants to reclaim her dark nature back in place.

Walburga looks suddenly tired at it, older than her own age. And he is not sure if she’s showing himself a decadent facade of her that he still doesn't know, or if she’s playing tricks again.

“You practically raised her,” he points out, bringing her back to the talk, moving far from the deep waters of desire they once played with. 

He remembers well the way Walburga helped her younger brother raise his kids after his wife died, how long ago was that? A decade or more? That’s when she pulled away from her own enjoyable dark adventures in lost forsaken lands and political machinations.

“Why are you offering her to me if you think I can’t handle her?”

“She wants in anyways, has been talking about your Cause for quite some time now. But she listens to me. So I told her to wait, to focus on her own achievements before looking for any Cause.”

“You’re wise. You’ve ever been...”

“No, I’m a woman. I know very well what happens to us once we put men as a priority.”

“The  _ Cause _ is the priority.”

“Oh, Tom...” she mutters, and her languid eyelids drop as he runs his fingertips over her lower lip, sensually. A ghost memory. A mock imitation of how it used to feel. “Let’s not lie to each other. This has never been about a Cause, it has always been about  _ you _ .”

It makes the trick. He grabs her neck in his hand, hard enough to bruise. 

Because she is insanely right and he hates her for reading him so damn well.

“Say that again,” he dares.

She smiles. And this time there’s only a manic glow in her eyes. It’s a sight of beauty. A tumultuous glint of something distorted, almost gone, completely irrational. 

She struggles to breathe and he wants her to answer so he can stop. He does not want to hurt her. He never did. Or maybe he did a bit too much.

But before he can get her to speak, Walburga drops the burning tobacco of her pipe on his hand and he pulls away, letting her go. Avoiding violence in a way he is not used to, but on handling with her, it comes as second nature.

Walburga coughs coarsely, gasping for air, and spits on the floor disgusted, moving her long heavy mane off her face. 

“She’s young and impressionable,” she says in a scratchy voice. “Her Destiny was obvious since birth. She is to bring the war upon us, she will be fairly helpful to your Cause.”

“You send her my way, and I will see how helpful she can be.”

He moves away. 

Hatred is possessing him, and he reminds himself how she used to drive him insane, always thinking she knows better than everyone else. And she used to. He starts walking towards the stairs. Feeling shaken in a way he hasn’t felt in years. Decades even. He needs to get away from her. She has never been a good influence to his mind, as she has always been more like a distraction of sorts.

Like a thorn on his side. Like a haunted voice in the back of his mind. Like a fever in the middle of the night. After all, she is the ruler of the fortress as her namesake implies. The fortress she rules on his reign is one of mad desire and loss. 

Once open only doom can enter.

“You know about the Black Curse?” she asks indifferent, falling back to her disgruntled copper chair, her hair a mess, fingers flicking her wand sharply and preparing herself another pipe.

“No.”

“Every time a firstborn is female, she’s cursed to madness,” she says solemnly.

He notices she’s manoeuvring him to safer grounds far from the madness and power that lure them together in a tangle of despair. Hatred starts dissipating inside his chest as magic, while he looks at her over his shoulder. Ordering memory to record any single detail of the woman he doesn’t want to cross path with again. 

She is damnation. He has known it since he met her as a 11 years old boy, fascinated by her beauty and dark knowledge.

“Have you been feeling insane lately?” he asks, it is half a joke, half a goodbye. 

He missed her. He will always miss her. 

Her presence is like an echo of pursues he gave up in order to reach immortality and power.

She would always be a weakness he cannot afford.

“Haven’t I always been insane, Riddle?” 

And the laugh that escapes her lips is maniac and strident. It makes him shudder and leave her with her own dark and distorted madness. 

The brink of her madness is showing and it suits her. Her death-wish drives him a little insane with a feverish passion. 

Walburga Black has always been made for disastrous deeds.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know your thoughts if you liked it!  
> cheers, tai! <3


End file.
